Conventionally a bill discriminating and counting apparatus has been known, which includes a hopper for accepting bills of mixed denominations, and the accepted bills are fed and transported one by one to discriminate the denomination and authenticity of each bill and to count the number of the bills, so that the total amount of the genuine bills or the number of the genuine bills for each denomination is calculated and displayed (see Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2003-296801, for example).
With reference to FIG. 1, the general structure and operation of the above apparatus will be explained. FIG. 1 is a cross-sectional view showing an internal structure of a general bill discriminating and counting apparatus.
In FIG. 1, bills which are put on a hopper section are fed into a transport path of the bill discriminating and counting apparatus by a feeding roller 5, and are transported by a plurality of transport rollers 6. During the transportation, the bills pass detecting sensors 7a and 7b, thereby a bill discriminating sensor 8 discriminates the denomination and authenticity of each of the bills. Then the bills pass another detecting sensor 7c, and are received between blades of a rotating impeller 9 to be sorted and accumulated in a stacking section 2 when the bill discriminating sensor 8 judges that the bill is genuine. While, when the bill discriminating sensor 8 judges that the bill is a counterfeit bill, a solenoid 10 is operated to cause a branching pawl 11 to move downward to send the bill to a rejecting section 3. The reference numeral 4 designates an operation displaying section where various settings are made for bill discriminating and counting processes.
However, in the above described bill discriminating and counting apparatus, as shown in FIG. 2, when bills having a large difference in longitudinal dimensions among denominations (for example, Euro bills) are put on a mounting platform 1a of the hopper section 1, a bill (500 Euro) P1 having a larger longitudinal dimension is fed into the apparatus without an oblique movement, but a bill (5 Euro) P2 having a smaller longitudinal dimension may be fed in an oblique direction. The oblique feeding of the bill P2 occurs, as shown in FIG. 2, because the bill P2 is disposed into the transport path at a position closer to one of symmetrically arranged side hopper members 12a and 12b (closer to the right side hopper member 12a in FIG. 2), and the two feeding rollers 5a and two feeding rollers 5b which are symmetrically arranged at around the center of the mounting platform 1a are not sufficiently in contact with the bill P2, that is, the left side feeding rollers 5b are not in contact with the bill P2. The bill P2 which is obliquely fed into the transport path in this way has been a cause of a low transmission.
Moreover, some of the bills put on the hopper section 1 have a deformed portion such as curl (warp) or wrinkle (folding) which is caused by a metal wheel formed on the bills. Such bills having a deformed portion jam at an insert port of the apparatus, which has been also a cause of a low transmission.
Thus, an apparatus in which bills having such deformation are aligned and accumulated is disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2003-276931, for example. The apparatus includes a stage on which bills are accumulated, side hoppers on sides of the stage, and supportive side hoppers which are pivotably mounted to the side hoppers. The lower parts of the supportive side hoppers and the lower parts of the side hoppers form a space having a shape which is similar to a locus of a curled bill along which the curled bill is stretched. This prevents a curled bill from being fed into the side hoppers when the curled bill is stretched.
However, the above described apparatus disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2003-276931 only achieves an aligned accumulation of curled bills at a bill accumulating section, and is not configured to prevent a jamming of a curled bill at an insert port of a hopper section in a bill discriminating and counting apparatus, which is the problem to solve in the present invention.
Even if the configuration having the side hopper and the supportive side hopper is applied to an insert port of a hopper section in a bill discriminating and counting apparatus, the configuration requires a number of components, and increases the size of the apparatus, resulting in a higher manufacturing cost.